12 * 14 JULY 2000
MYSORE, INDIA
Linguistic and Interdisciplinary Approaches
To celebrate its fifth birthday, the Centre for Advanced Research on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (CARIKS) at Mysore, India, jointly organized an international seminar on 'Linguistic and Interdisciplinary Approaches as Critical Resources to Development', with the Centre for Co-operative Research in Social Science (CCRSS) at Pune and the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) at Mysore. The seminar took the incorporation of folklore studies in the social sciences and development studies as its vantage point.
* By JAN BROUWER
To evolve a research methodology for the integrated study of oral traditions and development, such was the seminar's objective. The seminar was made possible by funding from the Indian Council of Social Science Research (New Delhi) and the Central Institute of Indian Languages. In the opening session, the keynote address was delivered by Dr D.P. Pattanayak, former Director of the CIIL and founding father of CARIKS. Afterwards, three position papers were presented, each relating to one of the three themes of the seminar.
Dr Jennifer Bayer's position paper (CIIL, Mysore) related to the linkages between oral tradition and development addressed in theme one. She made a strong case for finding the missing link between research and development. The participants debated on the relevance of a purely economic definition of 'development'. They agreed folklore should be lifted out of its isolation not only as a discipline, but also in terms of cultural ideologies. A research methodology based on co-operation between the producers and the analysts of 'folklore' should therefore be developed in order to do proper justice to both the 'folklore authors' and academic objectives.
Dr Jan Brouwer (CARIKS, Mysore) introduced the second theme concerning a critical analysis of oral tradition and specific development questions. He revisited a couple of major and minor development projects for artisans of Karnataka from the perspective of Indigenous Knowledge Systems. In his critical analysis of these projects he compared the concepts behind the practices of the project designers with those behind the practices of the beneficiaries. The artisans' oral tradition was one of the main resources for his study. Mr Alex Cisilin (CNRS, Paris) and Dr Biswajit Das (Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi) looked at two different economic questions. Mr Cisilin's study of self-help groups in Kolar District of Karnataka State focused on indigenous versus modern economic concepts. He observed that the traditional Kannada concepts of gift, saving, and loan, were in conflict with their modern counterparts. Dr Das's study of famine in Lanjigarh, Kalahandi District, Orissa, showed that the concepts of famine and hunger are alien constructions superimposed upon a situation in which the indigenous networks of survival have broken down under the impact of 'development'. The participants agreed that the failure of relief measures is to be attributed to the modern state's artificial distance from the Indigenous Knowledge Systems, in which the economic, social, and ritual domains are intertwined.
Two papers were concerned with identity. Dr Somayaji's paper (University of Goa) considered various aspects of food: mediators social relations and forms of cultural symbols. Demonstrating how food is being intertwined with other domains, he observed that, for the modern state, food is an exclusive domain of reference. Mr Maid's paper (CCRSS, Pune) discussed the identity of the Parit washermen of Maharashtra. He gave an excellent account of the way myths function to bridge communication gaps observed by social workers. Dr Tiwari raised the issue of the relationship between belief, action, and history in the context of oral tradition and development.
Ms Hema Rairkar (CCRSS, Pune) dealt with health, particularly reproductive health, and the role of traditional midwives in Maharashtra. She powerfully argued that development based on human potentials needs to be rooted in indigenous practices. The last paper of this session was entitled, 'The Narmada Valley Damming Projects: Science, indigenous knowledge, and development in India'. Mr Ajay Gandhi forcefully brought out the contemporary development conflicts in India in which the dichotomy between modern science and indigenous knowledge is a central theme. He also drew attention to contradictions and ambiguities present in the strategic employment of science and indigenous knowledge. Dr Guy Poitevin (CCRSS, Pune) stated that the terms 'scientific knowledge' and 'indigenous knowledge' do not constitute a binary opposition but form a continuum.
Memory and remembrance
Dr Guy Poitevin introduced the final theme, namely 'treating research methodology'. He emphasized the need to ground development processes upon people's own intangible heritage of oral traditions. He raised a few fundamental questions in relation to an envisaged interdisciplinary research methodology. One of them is the apparent contradiction in the discourse of a continuity that both legitimizes and carries through changes within tradition itself: what could be the status of concepts of social or cultural transformation when change in continuity occurs in the name of tradition? In this regard, he suggested two lines of reflection. The first would be to make a conceptual distinction between remembrance oral tradition as records and memories and the work of memory. The second would be to frame an approach in terms of cultural interbreeding based on an hermeneutics of the heritage of oral traditions' welcome of the presence of the 'other'.
If one is to accept, as a rule, the social scientific method that dictates that the living consciousness and statements of a human subject cannot be assessed properly by an alien onlooker only, it would follow that the incorporation of the subject's performances and pronouncements cannot be dispensed with in the analytical research process.
Dr Bernard Bel (CNRS-Laboratoire Parole et Langage, France) presented an extraordinary paper on prosodic patterns and rhetoric in the performance of 'folk' songs, notably the grind-mill songs presented by Ms Rairkar earlier. His fieldwork experiments, using, among other aids, the multi-platform praat (speech) software developed by the University of Amsterdam, prompted new questions about the rhetoric of singing. These questions are inspired by the observation that almost unnoticeable aspects of the performance (of songs and ballads) in which one may reach new layers of meanings are not explicitly conveyed by the lyrics. This is a domain of 'hidden' knowledge that provides feedback and new insights to both the analysts and the informants.
Dr Guy Poitevin's session paper analysed two Marathi myths as an example of an interdisciplinary method. Having stated that an oral tradition is a form of symbolic communication, his approach finds its starting point and legitimacy in the linguistic status of the oral narrative as discourse. 'Understanding ourselves through a confrontation of our condition with the vision and intentionality of the text is achieved in practices of cultural action, social transformation, or development programmes undertaken among the same communities to whom the narratives belong'. He stressed that such cultural practices must be grounded in the objective semantic structure of the text itself.
The seminar concluded with a panel discussion on the position papers and the reports presented by the session reporters. The panel thought that the various levels of linguistic analysis contribute either directly or indirectly to development, that the analysis of oral tradition that recognizes narrative, speech, objects, and actions as text complements research findings in the social sciences, and that such knowledge and understanding can only be reached through forms of co-operative and interdisciplinary research. In concluding that a beginning for the development of an integrated research methodology towards this purpose can now be embarked upon, the panel recommended that a volume on research methodology based on the seminar proceedings be published and that a series of seminars focusing on critical areas that the seminar identified should be planned. Furthermore, it was felt that research projects should include the participation of people concerned at the research level itself in order to bridge the gap between experts and informants. The seminar was a fine example of collaboration between governmental and non-governmental research institutions. The organizers must be complimented for their efforts which made this interdisciplinary meeting an international success.
Dr Jan Brouwer is the Director of the Centre for Advanced Research on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (CARIKS).
E-mail: ikdfcar@eth.net